Not posting this to start anything, but I was just surprised this site: http://www.guildwars...should-bookmark was not one the list not even for an honorable mention. There is a wealth of information buried especially regarding professions and builds. Yeah, sure there is a LOT of negativity and criticism here, but I do think the good outweighs the bad which should have at least warranted an honorable mention. It's kinda sad tho, because GW guru was the go to website for me back when I played GW1.

I'm not surprised it's not top 10, even the official forums weren't mentioned, who wants to spend their time reading other's complaints when you could be enjoying the game and using resources to augment the experience.

I'm not surprised it's not top 10, even the official forums weren't mentioned, who wants to spend their time reading other's complaints when you could be enjoying the game and using resources to augment the experience.

To the official forum is to get Anet's eyes on it the problem or whatever is on the player's mind and Guru has the database and the works of the artist in the "Library of Whispers." We talk about the problems in much more fine detail then you would find in official forum, somewhat.

Just goes to show, or rather reinforce the point that, we're a minority here.
The good, the bad, the criticism, the hate, the fanboyism, claims of being the best, shows of best builds, fastest runs, and all that we see on guru, it may be(or more likely is) all just the narrow views of a few.

Have to say, as someone who frequents guru regularly, I was surprised that it wouldn't be on such a list. Though perhaps that list isn't all that objective, I do not know by what standards or metric they made it.

The article aims to highlight the lesser known sites. Ask anybody about a GW2 site, and the first one that pops up is almost always Guru or a Curse related site.

Guru does not focus as much on resources (save for the GW2DB) or TP statistics as other websites. That article aims at providing resources about the game to players. Hence why GW2Wiki is on there.

Guru is known for having a strict moderation team (although i have yet to ever see anything out of the ordinary be done, Khalija and team keep it clean but not restricted).

Any discussion about the game is overshadowed by the conspiracies, "professional analysis" threads and constant bickering and circle-based reasoning discussions on the same topics over and over again by the same group of people. You really think fans will come to a forum like that to have an interesting discussion about parts of the game they enjoy? Of course not.

Probably the most outstanding reasons. *goes back to enjoying vacation*

Aside from GW2 reddit, those other forums have less than 1% of the number of GW2-related threads of GW2guru. Minority indeed.

Minority isn't relative to the popularity of other sites, but rather to the total player base of guild wars 2.
Looking at the bottom of the forums section, we see that GW2Guru has 68500 total members (unless this counter is broken or out of date). Last January, Arena Net reported they recently passed 3mil copies sold. In other words, roughly 0.023%(rounding up) of people who bought guild wars 2 have made an account on guru.
Now this is unfair, since there are easily more lurkers then there are members, so looking at the current ratio of online users vs guests, we have roughly (rounding up) 30 times more guest then users online. This will of course vary, but it at least works as some indication for the moment.
So 30 times our earlier % of purchasers equals 0.69%. Less then 1% of people who bought the game have frequented guru.
I'm certain these numbers are borked, positive. But looking at the range we're in, the size of the ball park for these numbers, I am positive guru frequenters are a minority of the player base.

Minority isn't relative to the popularity of other sites, but rather to the total player base of guild wars 2.
Looking at the bottom of the forums section, we see that GW2Guru has 68500 total members (unless this counter is broken or out of date). Last January, Arena Net reported they recently passed 3mil copies sold. In other words, roughly 0.023%(rounding up) of people who bought guild wars 2 have made an account on guru.
Now this is unfair, since there are easily more lurkers then there are members, so looking at the current ratio of online users vs guests, we have roughly (rounding up) 30 times more guest then users online. This will of course vary, but it at least works as some indication for the moment.
So 30 times our earlier % of purchasers equals 0.69%. Less then 1% of people who bought the game have frequented guru.
I'm certain these numbers are borked, positive. But looking at the range we're in, the size of the ball park for these numbers, I am positive guru frequenters are a minority of the player base.

All that too say, yes, minority indeed

Right, but what does that have to do with guru not being picked over smaller forums?

i stopped recommending guru a while ago. if you want information bar any negativity (most of the time) + a connection to the devs + friendly people you go to reddit. if you need special info, you go to one of the mentioned sites. if you wantto let off steam and laugh a bit, you come here.

Based on the selection of sites, I can see Guru competing for Reddit's spot and the simple fact of the matter is that Reddit does it better. I don't necessary agree with the views that dominate Reddit, but Guru absolutely fails to compete with it.
While I believe that some of the fault is with Guru's direction (I think that Guru is still stuck in the time when the forum had absolutely no competition and it's currently lacking a point: the closest that actually comes to a raison d'être is in being a place for the overly critical bunch of GW2 players - something that basically no other site caters to), there's also the issue of how the things that Guru does offer that are almost irrelevant in the game: the talk of builds (something that could elevate Guru among the most important GW2 sites) is basically worthless because the game is designed so that ANYTHING works, resulting in this section being insanely niche. Not only that, berserker's above all.
On top of that, the game also manages to completely separate the lore from the action part of the game, once again resulting in the lore being as niche as the builds.

So, what's Guru's point then? Especially, a point that isn't already covered by sites that didn't rest on their laurels?

As for this:

davadude, on 16 July 2013 - 12:11 AM, said:

Any discussion about the game is overshadowed by the conspiracies, "professional analysis" threads and constant bickering and circle-based reasoning discussions on the same topics over and over again by the same group of people. You really think fans will come to a forum like that to have an interesting discussion about parts of the game they enjoy? Of course not.

I do not see why this sort of content would be allowed to exist. Now, I fully accept that a number of forum posters would find my content fitting the above description, but the fact of the matter is that I don't remember a SINGLE infraction/warning for that type of content: having looked over my infractions it seems that they are mostly about the way I made my comments rather than the view expressed in said comments.
If the staff feels that certain views aren't productive for the existence of the forum, it's insane that they are allowed to stay. Hand out warnings, hand out infractions, suspensions and bans. But it's utter bullshit that users get blamed for destroying the site by posting their views, when the staff almost never objects to said views.

While I understand that this thread could make certain passions run high, I REALLY hope it's allowed to stay and that the Guru community actually figures out what it wants Guru to be. It's a fantastic opportunity and it's a question that has been a long time coming.

I'm not at all surprised this place isn't exactly a hot spot for GW2 players. Not that I'd give much of a toss about it, but that's just my opinion. Speaking of opinions, I can actually say something without having my nuts torn off because because of some grammatical error or I'm not giving any ANet representatives a rimjob whenever they speak as if their words were gospel.

'sides, even though Reddit is relatively decent for what I'm looking for, unless I sculpt every sentence to absolute perfection anything I would say would get shot to hell, and I normally check out the official forum to see how often each class bitches about the other being more overpowered than another in at least one aspect, or how someone can make another joke at the ranger's expense.

I think it's widely unpopular because most of those other popular sides don't have to get ANET approval on everything they write on their main page.

Most interesting news that aren't patch notes or taken off the GW2 Blog site are simply no where to be found, on Guru. That somehow changed after release, as I always loved it as a source of news and a venue to talk about those - but ever since the release, it became less and less current, most of the times even piss-poor German community sites have their news posted and translated quicker than Guru can be arsed to do, so that's definitely a relic of the past.

Which is a shame, cause I quite like the infrastructure of the whole board etc - Reddit, while hugely informative, is just a pain to read through, if you aren't familiar with it - so I'd really want an alternative to it, that is current, has leaks up for debate etc.

I think what you'd find if you looked into it in more detail, is that a large number of the Guru users are GW1 vets, whereas many players new to the Guild Wars franchise had no reason to come to guru over any of the other GW2 sites. This would also shed some light on why many perceive a negative tone on these forums... quite a few GW1 players are disappointed with the way GW2's systems have been implemented, especially compared to how similar systems were set up in GW1.

The list in question is clearly flawed in various ways anyway. Go to google and type in "GW2 event timer" and see which website comes up first. It's not on that list, despite the fact that google says more people go there than the one event timer that did make the list. Seems to me that the list is more just the sites that writer(s) liked the best, rather than saying anything about quality or popularity.

Most of those sites are specialty resource sites. I wouldn't expect a site like Guru to be mentioned in such a list. The choices made for a few of them are a bit odd when the community obviously prefers a different site. As stated by other posts, I see no sort of metric involved so the sites are pretty much just the ones the author uses.

Ritualist, on 16 July 2013 - 07:01 AM, said:

While I understand that this thread could make certain passions run high, I REALLY hope it's allowed to stay and that the Guru community actually figures out what it wants Guru to be. It's a fantastic opportunity and it's a question that has been a long time coming.

There is no reason that this thread should need to be closed that I can see. Discuss away as long as we keep it civil.

And no. We do not infract people for having a certain view. We do not censor people and never will. We punish people who break our rules, but how can we be a discussion board if the mod staff has a hidden agenda that your post has to meet in order for it to stay?

Little Mabel won't be able to be here it's our worst fear. She's busy working on her garden that she's growing up in space.

Why hello there forumite. Would you like me to review some moderation you did not agree with? Never fear! PM is here! Want to be a better poster? Check on this link! And this one!

Hey everyone! Just thought I'd chime in and second davadude and Feathermoore's thoughts on the matter. The list was indeed more resource-friendly, and while it's a shame to not see GW2DB on that list, it's understandable that we (Guru) weren't.

I also want to publicly state that the staff here have been talking about making some changes to the site in general. We're also tired of the trolling and constant derailing of threads due to the fact that some people can't get passed that Guild Wars 2 is more than its gem store. You'll see us get stricter in that regards because while we don't want to squelch negative viewpoints, it's gotten past that point and we want people to be able to discuss topics without the same circlejerk taking over every thread.

With that being said... help us by reporting derailment and other rule breaking posts (if you want to report many posts in a thread, report the first one and then include that the whole thread needs looking at). It really helps us squash those out faster because then we don't have to go in and hope we stumble across it while we are manually patrolling the forums.

If you have any other ideas on how we can improve, please feel free to send me or Neo Nugget a PM (or include us both for a faster response). This is your forum as much as ours so your suggestions and feedback are always welcome!

Edit: Just wanted to clarify that this works both ways: the outright unsubstantiated negativity and positivity - sometimes it seems that some people take direct offense to those being critical of the game and defend it to the brink of absurdity. These are both bad for the forums.

Feel free to PM me if you have a question regarding moderation, want to leave some feedback, or just want to chat!

Before launch it seemed like Guru was the place with the most in depth information. It was the place to come to keep up with the game. You could skip right past Tyrian Assembly and avoid 90% of the pointless threads, and get all kinds of juicy information in the more specific forums.

This was true for a while after launch as well, but I've been saddened in recent months to see seemingly less and less posting in the profession forums, for example. It used to be I came here to read in depth info on builds and technique. Nowadays I tend to find more on the official forum, once I weed through "why you nerf me?" posts.

I don't think it has much to do with Guru. People just don't spend time on many different forums, and since GW2, unlike it's predecessor, has an official forum it ends up as the default for many.

Hey everyone! Just thought I'd chime in and second davadude and Feathermoore's thoughts on the matter. The list was indeed more resource-friendly, and while it's a shame to not see GW2DB on that list, it's understandable that we (Guru) weren't.

I also want to publicly state that the staff here have been talking about making some changes to the site in general. We're also tired of the trolling and constant derailing of threads due to the fact that some people can't get passed that Guild Wars 2 is more than its gem store. You'll see us get stricter in that regards because while we don't want to squelch negative viewpoints, it's gotten past that point and we want people to be able to discuss topics without the same circlejerk taking over every thread.

With that being said... help us by reporting derailment and other rule breaking posts (if you want to report many posts in a thread, report the first one and then include that the whole thread needs looking at). It really helps us squash those out faster because then we don't have to go in and hope we stumble across it while we are manually patrolling the forums.

If you have any other ideas on how we can improve, please feel free to send me or Neo Nugget a PM (or include us both for a faster response). This is your forum as much as ours so your suggestions and feedback are always welcome!

Thank you so much for this, Khalija

Kymeric, on 16 July 2013 - 07:29 PM, said:

Before launch it seemed like Guru was the place with the most in depth information. It was the place to come to keep up with the game. You could skip right past Tyrian Assembly and avoid 90% of the pointless threads, and get all kinds of juicy information in the more specific forums.

This was true for a while after launch as well, but I've been saddened in recent months to see seemingly less and less posting in the profession forums, for example. It used to be I came here to read in depth info on builds and technique. Nowadays I tend to find more on the official forum, once I weed through "why you nerf me?" posts.

I don't think it has much to do with Guru. People just don't spend time on many different forums, and since GW2, unlike it's predecessor, has an official forum it ends up as the default for many.

Because people are having fun in game and they dont see to all the pity auguring and brickering here and there. They just want to get the juicy bit of info,chime in and move on.

Other than Guru, orrmaps, gw2lfg, dulfy, and gw2wiki to some extent I have not used any other site. I got linked to GW2skills and other build sites from here. I did not go to official forums at all. That forum posts looked way too much doctored for my taste. The list from OP provides good resources that are above and beyond I ever used. So, it is helpful.

@Khalija - My suggestion will be a sticky thread called "Drop your tears here." Let all nonsensical rhetorical QQ posts get to that sticky and periodically archived. So, on the mornings, when I am pissed off after ANET adds more timed jump puzzles to the game, I can go drop my tears there and move on to better things to do or say.

We're also tired of the trolling and constant derailing of threads due to the fact that some people can't get passed that Guild Wars 2 is more than its gem store.

Edit: Quoted above as an example of generalization.

The problem is when anyone says anything critical or negative about GW2 even if it is on topic, certain people start derailing the topic because they feel they have to defend Anet and GW2 to the death....

Also another problem is when players have a decent legitimate post about anything to do with the game that is critical or negative whether it is about the gem store or anything else to do with the game or anet, suddenly it is put under the label trolling, derailing. off topic even when it is on topic, whining, complaining etc...even when it is a legitimate point of view and opinion that just happens to be different to someone else's...but because it is critical or comes across as negative or is not the same point of view suddenly it is not accepted.

It's almost as if people will not be allowed to be anything but happy, positive and only say good things about Anet or GW2 or the gem store or please leave and GTFO the forums...

My suggestion is if someone says something about the game that you don't agree with or is different to your own personal opinion that is what a debate and discussion is, people with difference in ideas and opinions....not everyone agreeing with each other and only ever saying positive things...never being objective or critical...

You don't need to go to the defence of Anet and the game everytime someone disagree's with your opinion or the game, that's how derailing of threads start and that is what causes the problem.

To generalize the issue to just people complaining about the gem store, just shows you have not bothered to read or look at the situation objectively, looked at the bigger picture and you have already used pre judgement and bias on the matter.

I still think this is a much better place than the official forums for many many reasons.

EDIT: this is a general post not aimed directly at mods or anyone but just everyone in general including myself.

This seems to be a blanket approach to deal with what is being viewed as negativity as opposed to polite discourse. Especially since a lot of the defense against the discourse seems to be attacking our purposes for being on the forums if we apparently dislike what is happening. As if in order to post here, you have to be a head-bobbing bobble-head to every announcement that comes down the pipe. Or the strongest emotion you're allowed to present is mild disappointment, instead of analysis and criticisms.

Ultimately what we're seeing is a call to the players to form a gestapo-like force of TIPS-like monitoring, so the mods don't have to necessarily cover the entire ground themselves, and then quietly (and it has been done VERY quietly in many threads) either edit, remove information without any form of record or annotated cause unless you can actually infract the individual on the matter. Very few mods even post their presence in someone else's post when they make a change. And since we're not allowed to talk about specific examples of moderation, that too falls by the wayside, especially when your post is edited without a mod even saying WHY, the height of cowardice, so you can't even discuss it privately. At least Reddit has the ability to leave a paper trail, if not the actual context of comments removed, which is another bullet point in its favor over Guru. Or as Ritualist says: "...Reddit does it better. I don't necessary agree with the views that dominate Reddit, but Guru absolutely fails to compete with it." This is an escalation of policies that are apparently not working, instead of thinking outside those policies as a way of fostering a community. Treating it as any Internet forum by the book, and following a rather archaic methodology for regulating it.

At that point, what ends up separating this place from the main forums, with the exception of having to pay a fee to access something as simple as the signature interface, which is highly restricted in and of itself. If you want to stifle the discourse, I suppose no one can stop you, but all it'll do is foster the forums further into obscurity, as it lacks anything to distinguish itself from the main game forums, since it'll have lost its most differentiating aspect: the ability to actually call out the developers on their BS.

Edited by MazingerZ, 16 July 2013 - 08:22 PM.

It's okay to enjoy crap if you're willing to admit it's crap.Every patch is like ArenaNet walking out onto the stage of the International Don't Kitten Up Championship, and then proceeding to shiv itself in the stomach 30 times while screaming "IT'S FOR YOUR OWN GOOD! IT'S FOR YOUR OWN GOOD!"